There just has to be something in the water in D.C. that gives you the “Dr. Strangelove’s Fist” level uncontrollable urge to spend money you don’t have. Now the Nationals are in on the act. For those of you who haven’t noticed, and judging by the attendance that’s most of you (thank you, Harry Doyle) the Washington Nationals just signed their #1 overall draft pick to a rookie-record $15.1 million contract.

As we speak, Washington ranks 14th of 16 National League teams in attendance, averaging roughly 23,000 victims spectators per home game. Of course, this might be related to the fact the Nats are a team so far back on the last-place highway they can barely make out the tail lights of the team in front them.

So, in order to get a few more nickels in the piggy bank, the Gnats decided to hold a promotion last Friday.  For only a buck, you could come down to Nationals Park and get a glimpse of the Washington Nationals’ new $15 million man during on-field, pregame news conference with new rich guy Stephen Strasburg.

For some reason, Gnats’ victims faithful ponied up a Washington to revel in the moment a franchise officially mortgages it’s future. Early returns indicated this might be a stroke of genius as the ticket office sold 6,000 $1 tickets in three hours. The problem: those were the only returns; seems nobody really wanted to hang  around an empty ball park for the 5 1/2 hours between the 2 p.m presser and the scheduled first pitch.

In other words, this was just more Nationals-type thinking. Perhaps if the ballpark held 15 million people, this might have worked.